West Virginia football has won four of their first five games, but as they head to Thursday night’s game against Houston, they know they need to continue to get better.
“I think for us to me, it’s us continuing to get better,” West Virginia head coach Neal Brown said. “I know that’s coach speak or whatever. But we’re on this winning streak and we really haven’t played a three-phase game.”
The two key areas Brown is honing in on is a faster start defensively as well as an improved offensive attack — two things that will be pivotal against the Cougars.
Offense Making Strides
“We’ve been handcuffed a little bit offensively,” Brown said. “I think going in this week, depending on who plays on the o-line, but the skill guys, we’re the healthiest we’ve been from a skill perspective.”
A large part to that equation is the health of quarterback Garrett Greene. Greene has appeared in four games for West Virginia, but only played a significant amount of snaps in three of those games. Against the two power five opponents in Penn State and TCU, Greene averaged to complete 54 percent of his passes for 152 yards through the air. He also averaged 76 yards per game on the ground across those two games.
“I think are quarterbacks are continuing to mature so I think we’re on the verge of playing some good offensive football,” Brown said.
While the Mountaineers are hoping to score more points and be improved on the offensive side of the ball, they don’t want to change their identity in doing so.
“I love throwing the ball as much as anybody,” Brown said. “That’s probably what my background is first and foremost is in the passing game. We got to get better throwing the football. For us to get to where we want to go, our passing offense has to improve.
“But the strength of our team right now is in our offensive line. The job is to win games, that’s what we’re doing. We’e playing to our strengths right now, we’re playing defense at a high level, we’re playing special teams at a high level. Now I’m not naive, we’re going to have to score more points to win games and we need to do that starting on Thursday.”
Defense Starting Fast
On the opposite side of the ball, West Virginia’s has been much better in the second half of games compared to the first.
Through their first five games, the Mountaineers have allowed opponents to score in nine of the 10 quarters in the first half. In the second half though, opponents have only scored in four of the 10 quarters, with two of them coming week one against Penn State.
“I think when you go into the open week you always look and say okay where can we get better. Obviously we haven’t started as quickly as we’d like to,” Brown said. “We’ve been able to overcome some deficits, but you’d rather not to have to overcome those. That’s just an emphasis program wide. Regardless of who we’re playing, we’ve got to do a better job of starting the game. We’ve kind of been waiting to get our feet wet then play good defense, we need to get started faster.”
As for how they start faster, defensive tackle Edward Vesterinen said, “it just comes back to good fundamental football.”
“I think it’s the mental mistakes,” Vesterinen said. “Let’s go back to the Pitt game. Pitt, heir first offensive drive, they started kind of rolling but it was because of missed tackles. If we had made those tackles Pitt wouldn’t have had their good first drive.”
Vesterinen added, “I think as a defense, we’re waiting for somebody to make that big play, then we start to play good defense. I think we just got to start better, faster, in the beginning.”
Holgorsen’s Homecoming?
It’s not exactly a homecoming for Dana Holgorsen, who was the West Virginia head coach from 2011-2018, but there will be familiar faces in both places. Houston has four former Mountaineers, while there are four players Holgorsen either coached or recruited currently on WVU’s roster. Add in the coaching staff connections for Houston, and there is almost a dozen former Mountaineers related to Houston one way or another.
“I think our fanbase needs to understand, I pull in, I see his face. They won the Orange Bowl and I think he’s won 10 games twice here and did a nice job. There’s not ill will for I think anybody in this building going down there,” Brown said.
Slowing Down Smith
Houston quarterback Donovan Smith has been quite good for the Cougars this season. He has faced the Mountaineers on two other occasions at Texas Tech, but he has played well so far this season.
Smith has completed 74 percent of his passes for 1,348 yards, and nine touchdowns. He’s also thrown three interceptions on the season. Smith is also a highly capable runner, rushing for 162 yards and three touchdowns this season as well.
“The thing that sticks out to me, he’s a coaches son, so he’s really smart too, but he’s big. He’s really big. He’s a strong runner. They use him to run some and he’s got a big arm. He’s a guy that I think is really talented and can run and pass and hurt you in both of those,” Brown said.
Smith’s success has helped Houston have the third-best passing offense in the Big 12, as well as former Mountaineer Samuel Brown lead the Big 12 in receiving this season.
O-Line Obstacles
West Virginia could be without the entire starting left side of their offensive line against Houston. Tomas Rimac is out and Wyatt Milum is considered a game-time decision, according to Brown.
NCAA Tournament Comparison?
Brown made a comparison to the NCAA Tournament in how the Mountaineers are just trying to survive and advance every week through Big 12 play. West Virginia is 2-0 in the Big 12 right now, sitting alone in second place.
“The way I look at it is we’re 2-0 in the conference, I think that’s the most important thing,” Brown said. We don’t talk about 4-1 much, we talk about 2-0. The way I talk about it with our team is you’re in the NCAA basketball tournament. Every game is survive and advance. For us it’s about getting better and this happens to be our Big 12 game this week. So let’s find a way to get to 3-0.”
